


The Mermaid and the Sailor

by fuckedbones



Category: Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Andersen
Genre: Adaptation, Classics, F/M, Fantasy, Magical Realism, fairytales - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 11:30:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4220031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuckedbones/pseuds/fuckedbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wants to go back to the sea. He’s willing to give her back her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mermaid and the Sailor

**Author's Note:**

> This is a small piece I wrote for my Creative Writing class on "creative plagiarism". We had to rewrite a classic story and this is what came out of this prompt. Based off Hans Christian Andersen's tale "The Little Mermaid".
> 
> You can find me in [Tumblr](http://thestudyingapollo.tumblr.com)!

They sit around her and with voices that scratch like shark’s skin, they sing, waiting for her reply. The first day, she doesn’t even venture taking her head out of the water they’re keeping her in: the sailors touch her scales, tug her tail and grip her face, as if only by doing that inspection they could understand what she is.  
However, the only thing they know about her is her price, and they’re not willing to let her go for the world.  
Despite her first moments of reticence, she starts poking her head outside the tub at the third night, because curiosity weighs more in her heart than fear does. She listens attentively to the sailors’ songs, to the waves replying with a furious murmur. 

*****

Sailors seem curious creatures to her. They move without respite in the ship, working, knotting and singing songs as old as men’s wish to taking to the sea.  
They’re big and strong, some are broken, but there’s something in them that turns them into a species almost as unique as her own: they all love the ocean in such an untamed way that they don’t even fear facing its rage; dying in such immensity seems to be the only thing they desire as strongly as living surrounded by the sea’s embrace.  
She can’t take her eyes off them. 

*****

There’s a sailor that piques her interest more than any other one. He’s young, but he doesn’t seem inexperienced. His hands are as calloused as galley slave’s; his skin, as brown and battered as the oldest sea dog’s. His steps are nimble at the bowsprit, and he never loses his smile while working.  
She dreams about the feeling of his hands dancing over her scales. 

*****

The young sailor’s voice is the sweetest of the crew. When she listens to him, she feels as if she has returned to the sea, floating in the water of a storm’s night. If she closes her eyes, the deepness of the ocean seems to float around the rumble of his voice, enveloping her in a velvety darkness, isolating her from the tempest that awaits on the surface. 

*****

Crewmen, tired after a hard day of work, sit around her on deck, drinking from flasks they carry in their pockets and from bottles that go from man to man swinging like seaweed moved by the current.  
Lamplights invade the darkness on deck, and while the young sailor sings, for the first time she wants to join her voice to someone else’s. 

*****

One night, when everyone is sleeping, he sits by her side. They examine each other like two animals that, thinking themselves alone in a meadow, are surprised by each other. The look and look, paralyzed, without knowing what to do.  
Stars fall over the sea.  
The stay like that, looking at each other, alone the whole night.  
When he speaks, breaking the soliloquy of the wind that pushes the ship towards its destiny, she doesn’t understand him. 

*****

From there onwards, he accompanies her as many nights as possible. He turns into her guardian and keeper, bringing her fishes from the catch of the day and changing the water of her tub when the sun burns above their heads  
He doesn’t try to speak to her anymore, having realized that she doesn’t understand his words.  
But he sings, because when he does it, she doesn’t seem as sad. 

 

*****  
He wants to free her.  
His Captain warns him not to suggest such a thing again, because if he does, he will be drowned in the same sea they cought her from. 

*****

Being separated from the sea hurts like an open wound. It’s not natural, like a piece of skin and flesh torn in two. Only thread can put them back together, until time closes the abyss that separates both, leaving an iridescent line white like sea foam, a remainder that what was one, can not ever be divided.  
She feels raw inside. 

*****

Only when she’s loved, she’ll be able to sing again; only when someone gives their life for her, she will be able to feel her own heartbeat again. It’s been like that for a long time.  
Being a mermaid is a curse.  
*****

The Captain wants to sell her: mermaids are rare and expensive.  
The young sailor knows it, and he can’t bear the idea of seeing her butchered and sold like mere catch.  
He can’t either bear the pain he sees in her eyes when she looks at the sea. 

*****

That same night, she sings for the first time. He feels the force of the sea, the wrath awaiting under the undulating calm.  
He feels as if the ocean itself is singing for him, and only for him. 

*****

No other sailor has heard her singing. The young sailor slips out of his cot while everyone’s sleeping and goes to deck to be with her.  
Her scales don’t shine with the moonlight anymore, her head can’t rise to gaze at the dark sky full of stars, and her hands can only link with his. He caresses her hard skin, with fingers dancing over olive-like arms, until they reach the sadness of her lips, that still sing for him.  
But now her voice reminds him of a stream fighting against drought. 

*****

She wants to go back to the sea. He’s willing to give her back her life. 

*****

Breathing hurts as if her gills wanted to detach themselves from her neck. Each puff of air seems to be tearing her scales apart, one by one. She feels as if her vocal chords are being bitten.  
The light of the Sun blinds her, seagulls fly around her worn-out soul, and the fishes he brings start to decompose under her.  
He observes, and sings. 

*****

They’re arriving to their destiny. The steep cliffs that surround the village can’t cover the glimpse of the lighthouse.  
That night the moon is full, and he knows it’s his last chance. The young sailor abandons his cot, doesn’t even bother to bring a lamplight with him: he would know the way to her even in abyssal depths.  
When he approaches her, she’s sleeping, languid over the tub edge, her scales pale like dead coral. He takes her in his arms and steps inside a boat that he takes down to sea.  
He starts rowing, getting away from the ship, and when the distance seems insurmountable, he wakes her.  
The young sailor helps her to get into the water. He holds her, still weak from exertion. They look at each other, and before sinking deep in the ocean, she links chapped lips against her own. He gazes while she swims to the bottom of the sea, reliving the kiss with his tongue.  
He doesn’t know how much time he spends watching over the moon, that seems to want to swim after her. 

*****

When he comes back to the ship, the Sun hasn’t risen yet. He goes to his cot, not even bothering to feign sleep.  
The sky starts to become bronze like a treasure chest, and The Captain realizes that she’s not there anymore. He’s taken out of his cot and brought to deck.  
After beating him, The Captain orders his execution. 

*****

They throw him to the sea like a bag of rotten fish. The tide drowns him, and his hands tied with expert knots prevent him from fighting for his life. His lungs start to fill with water, air is running out.  
He accepts the cold comfort that surrounds him and turns into white foam, breaking against the cliff.


End file.
